


The Dark City

by InfinityWhale



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Humanstuck, Multi, Mystery, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-13 20:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityWhale/pseuds/InfinityWhale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every city has its mysteries, but few are quite so built around them as this one. But if you find them, you might just ruin a foundation that's existed from time unremembered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Land of Peasants and Scholars

“How does a seer see?”

It’s a question that seems to have haunted me throughout my entire life, an ethereal fragment of some other existence that was nigh forgotten, leaving me with only its dim lanterns hanging to guide me. Not that dim lanterns are in short supply, especially not in this area of town, where a lady such as me could run into significant problems without a comparable amount of preparation. Luckily, I’ve never been the sort to act as proper lady, much to my mother’s chagrin. The fact that this area tends to contrast with my lordly birth doesn’t matter much to me: this is the interesting part of town, and the best sort of information can be found by perusing its depths with a watchful eye.  
And this store in particular, Scratch’s Emporium. Their selection of antiques and manuscripts, as well as the occasional antique manuscript, helps me delve into the dense mythology that surrounds this town. Despite what the constables would have you believe, it did not spontaneously generate itself out of the mud (though the local’s attire would give you another idea, based upon appearances), but any single look at where it came from, or its history beyond the past couple of years, will get you locked up or worse. That puts open inquiry out of the question, but that doesn’t mean that skilled seeker can’t find the hidden details and begin to illuminate the path. I step up to the shop, perhaps my favorite, and open the door, ancient bells calmly announcing my presence as I do so.

“IF YOU SO MUCH AS TOUCH ANY OF THESE BOOKS WITHOUT WASHING YOUR FUCKING HANDS I WILL-“ The boy behind the desk begins his usual tirade, but then pauses as soon as he sees me. “Oh, hello Miss Lalonde,” he says, his tone immediately changing as soon as he sees me. You could assume it’s because of my birth: my mother is a rather well-known dowager with a fortune large enough to purchase an entire district, but in my experience Karkat doesn’t operate like that. My close friend Maryam peruses this store and receives the same treatment regardless, and the occasional noble who wonders in doesn’t get any special treatment. “Would you like me to get the Doctor for you?”  
“That won’t be necessary,” I reply, giving him a calm but sincere smile. His antics may be loud, but they are rather amusing, and usually just act as a way for him to hide his caring nature and the chip on his shoulder. “How’s the leg?”

“Still hurts,” he says, returning to the tawdry romance novel he’s reading. I make fun of him for the habit almost as often as I borrow his vast collection for perusal. “Doc says he knows a way to fix it, but for whatever incomprehensible reason he won’t, the asshole.”

“He probably doesn’t want to have to go without such an excellent assistant,” I reply, savoring the blush that I briefly glimpse before he covers it up more perfectly with the book he is reading. Karkat is a bit blustery sometimes, and on occasion too sensitive, but there is no denying that he is a good friend and an excellent colleague on matters of both the heart and the City, but you could expect little less from the Doctor’s assistant. I run my hand over a nearby shelf, scanning the titles of the tomes. Most of these I have read at some point or another, but the stock seems to replenish itself on a regular basis. I would suspect the good Doctor of writing them, but that would be a feat beyond that of mere mortal, which almost puts it out of the question.

The bells ring again, and I give the door a glance, somewhat surprised. This store does not see a great deal of patronage, to the point that you sometimes have to wonder how it manages to stay open, much less employ a disabled young man of the lower class. But once I see who the perpetrator is, the surprise alternates to the welcome kind. John has just entered the shop, dressed in his courier’s uniform, looking quite dashing. It’s a basic waistcoat with a crisp white shirt (he has spent hours cleaning that shirt after careless spills render it less than pristine) and a basic grey waistcoat and trousers to round it all out. On the upper left shoulder is stitched a green spectral figure, my own handiwork after he railed for hours to be allowed to put it on. He is a great enjoyer of adventuring novels of all sorts, and sometimes gets a bit too taken with them, but that is, I suppose, a piece of his charm.

“Hey there Rose, I mean, Miss Lalonde,” he starts, then catches himself after he makes a terrible etiquette mistake. There’s a reason he’s no longer allowed to deliver messages to the upper class people, despite the incredible speed he seems to manage it with. It’s something about the way he moves so freely. He seems to float above it all, not giving a care for what’s in his path, or what might stop him, or even how tired he is. He just floats on past it and gets the message delivered in no time flat. Even now he glows with a sort of intensity, waving off the drops of sweat on his face with his rather serviceable gray trilby.

“Mr. Egbert,” I reply in a mock-formal tone, jesting with his rather common slip-up in formality. His likability, speed, and lack of adherence to “necessities” of culture are the things that make him one of the most highly regarded workers around. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

His natural, goofy smile creeps up on his face as he reaches into his waistcoat. “A letter for you. I checked at your house but your mother said that you had gone for a brief stroll through the park. That usually means I can find you here.” John is an excellent friend, and knows how me and my mother operate, to such a degree that he is usually readily willing to help me subvert her, if not out of ill will for her, out of respect for my decisions and desires. He produces a square envelope with a few markings on it, most notably my name and the sigil of the house Lalonde.

I take it, and he pops in to give me a quick peck on the cheek, then dashes off before I can reply, the sneaky bastard. I’ll find some way to get him back for the glance Karkat throws us both, before I glare him down.

No matter. The envelope is of a high quality, a cardstock not reserved for everyday use. Quite naturally, this peaks my interest, and I gracefully slide my finger under the flap, severing the glue and the paper and freeing the message inside.

The message is short but telling, just one line of expertly typed text:  
“a 2umiit toniight. don't be late, lalonde. the u2ual locatiion.”  
And it would appear I have something to do tonight.


	2. Land of Fuck-Ups and Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sollux is in charge of a meeting. Doesn't mean he's happy.

If I’m going to be honest, I’m probably very close to getting myself into some incredibly deep shit here. Then again, that was going to happen no matter what. It happens to most of the royal mages at some point or another: it’s not whether or not there is any evidence against you, its whether or not somebody wants to find evidence against you and has half a brain to make it up. Call in a couple of favors, a “witness” to heresy against the crown, and soon enough the Lady of Condescension will bring the crooked Constables down on your head.

But no, I had to go one more step and make it just that much easier, by actually doing some real heresy and forgetting to clean up the fucking mess. Not that I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, but it was better to risk a small punishment then to keep hearing the voices without any way of dealing with them. I was a layperson, a commoner: anything I did was just some young kid dabbling in the arcane with no actual knowledge of its power, not a Magician of the High Court working in matters profane and devilish. And we had to go and name it the Coven, just like the asshole kids we were. Not like the higher-ups would ever find something like that reason to have us all beheaded, not to mention the fact that I joined this organization before I was even associated with the Crown. Sometimes it makes me wonder why I even joined the organization.  
No, that’s a lie. It was because of her, a charming young street girl who found it worthwhile to talk to a student at the only (piss-poor) school his dirt poor parents could afford. Even though that dumbfuck student had just thrown four kids twice his size halfway across the street with a massive burst of magic. And yet, she never acted afraid of me… him. Never acted afraid of him, and never ran away, even when he had one of his fits and couldn’t control himself. And now that smarmy prick Count Zahhak is trying to have her, which naturally means that any close friends must be taken care of. That is to say, I must be taken care of. And it’s bad enough to have an oaf like Equius on your case, but he brought in one of the few people who can trot out our whole circle and actually find us all and have us hung.

But I’m not really in the mood to think about our imminent mood. I mean, my subconscious whispers it to me constantly, but at least it’s better than the voices of the dead screaming for my blood consistently. I also happen to enjoy the Coven meetings, and not just for the petty risk seeking like Lalonde does. Fucking highborn thinks she can take one night off to take to a few lower class people and that it makes her cool or that she is living on the edge, when all it means is that to save her own hide she’s going to rat all of the rest of us out when it comes down to it. Well… that’s not true. I actually like Lalonde. She’s smart, she’s nice to us regardless of our birth, and more importantly, she is good at what she does. Which is two things: research, which I can do, but in an admittedly more pedestrian fashion, and communing, which half of me says is the most frightening shit a person can do to their brain, like ever (or “think pan”, to use the dumb as shit official magic terms), and the other half says is way too useful to let go to waste. So I’m glad you have someone as good as her at it to handle it.

I enter the dimly lit hut, a single lantern hanging in the center of it illuminating the faces of those within. I take your place at the head of the circle, the official leader of this clusterfuck. Which means almost nothing, since they tend to subvert about three quarters of any decision they make. “They” being Rose Lalonde, the highborn who somehow found you all, Tavros Nitram, a pauper like me who has some skill in the arts, but not enough to survive off of, Roxy Lalonde, who has some nebulous connection to the Lalonde house but lives in the Twisted Quarter, working some imperceptible trade that somehow keeps you all well supplied in secrets and with plenty of leverage to keep the Coven one as well. Next to her I can make out the girl called Aranea, the sister of Vriska, the bitch who’s gonna fuck up my shit. Thankfully, though I see next to her the one person who can salvage this whole god damn night for me: Aradia, dressed in her red rags but still looking very nice.

Suddenly I can’t take it, and I turn away from her smile and look ‘round at the group.

“So, if you haven’t heard, I kind of fucked things up and we might not be able to meet much or at all after this.” It’s a bit hard to talk about this, and my constant slurring of words with the occasional lisp is really not helping the matter.

“Oh my god, Sollux, what the hell did you do this time?” The only appropriate response is a sigh and to hang my head. I should probably be happy that Karkat managed to show up. He is one of my best friends by all accounts, but on this occasion I really just can’t take the strain. He enters in inching along on the ground with his crutch, then sets it down and takes a seat next to me. He looks tired, a fact evidenced by the fact that he pulls off his hat and tousles his red hair, lounging back in a half-dead fashion.

“I was just explaining that Karkat, thank you for being so curious,” I deadpan back at him, dealing with him in the only sanctioned method we utilize. “I ended up on Equius’ shitlist. He hired the spider lady.” Aranae looks confused. “No, not you. Your sister. Which means in a short bit she’ll obviously uncover this clusterfuck of incriminating information and most likely have us all killed. Well, except you Aranea, but she’ll hold it over your head for the rest of your life.” The prognosis is grim.  
Rose speaks up. “Do we need to be quite so grim about this whole thing? I don’t think we can take on the whole court, but I think that dealing with one information broker is another thing.” I don’t get along with Lalonde, most of the time. She tries to make these ludicrous plans to try and subvert inevitability. The problem is that most of the time she actually manages to pull it off. “We just need to find something on her.”

“Or kill her,” Aradia pipes up in her eerily cheery way. At this statement, Aranea pales suddenly.

“Um,” she starts, “I don’t know if that’s neccesarily the best option…”

“Let’s hold off on killing her for now,” I cut in. Don’t care too much for her, a little to wordy for my taste, but let’s not unnecessarily give her a heart attack. “What are you suggesting Lalonde? Are you going to commune?”

The look on her face immediately drops two expressions. “I haven’t in a couple of weeks,” she admits, and we all stiffen at the concept. The ability to commune with the deep and the dark is one of the things that keeps us a couple of very necessary steps ahead of anyone who would have us quite readily killed. “John has expressed concern about its effects on my mental health.” There’s a period of silence, but I eventually nod my head.

“We could really use it, but we can’t go asking you to throw your consciousness at dark forces from an unspeakable void if you’re not feeling up to it. Not like I’d want to do it,” I cede the point. “But if that’s not that case, we’ve only got a couple more options. One, we buy something. That means were going to have to scarper with some money from our families. Or two, we try the Twisted Quarter.” The people look back and forth between each other and nod their heads in agreement. Even Karkat spares us his usual criticisms, probably genuinely worried for our sake but nor willing to hide it with one of his usual bouts of mouthsewage. 

Roxy waves her hands emphatically. “Oooh! I’ll do it!” She at least appears mostly sober, a significant step up from usual. “I know the Twisted Quarter like the back of my hand.” Somewhat of an irony, considering that she’s wearing gloves.

Aradia pipes up, which I don’t expect “I would like to accompany her!” This at first worries we a bit, but I nod. The Twisted Quarter is perhaps the most dangerous part of the city aside from the palace, but Aradia owns the place by any meaningful definition. She used to be a powerful mage, but using the magic burned out her brain and gave her some kind of mental illness. She was pretty much dead, but on day ended up wandering into the Twisted Quarter and when she showed up again she was fine again. She uses magic on occasion, but not nearly as often as before. Oddly enough, though, the people in the quarter treat her these days like she’s royalty, or a deity. The implications are chilling, but there’s no doubt she’s one of the best for the job.

Meanwhile, Rose and Aranea have been talking amongst themselves then speak up. “Between me and Rose, we think that we can find someone to carefully remove money from our family and utilize it to pay for a detective of sorts. That detective should be able to-“ she begins, but I’m not in the mood to hear one of her explanations.

“Alright, make it happen. We know what we need to do, meeting adjourned. And… be careful.


	3. Chapter 3 - Land of Crime and Boredom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Detectives of the city: hardboiled, confident, cool, and above all, flat out of work.

Terezi barges into our office late. I’m not surprised in the least, she’s almost universally late, because every day she gets stopped by at least three constables for carrying a dangerous weapon before they realize that she’s blind. Granted, they’re not wrong, and I suppose it’s the price of getting an office in such a prime location. I mean, if we weren’t in the dingiest part of the town, and I mean the absolutely most shitty locale available in this whole goddamn massive toilet bowl I have somehow found myself wrapped up in the middle of, then how on earth would I be continuously surrounded by crime that I can fight? Though, to be fair, the actual crime fighting is more Terezi’s department. She’s the brain, I’m the eyes and the muscles, I guess. But hey, we make pretty fair amount of cash, and it’s a lot more interesting than factory work.  


“Hello Dave,” she says good naturedly as she walks in. Her voice is high, a little bit strident, but even that starts to become relatively appreciable once you get to know her. “What kind of crime-fighting ass-kicking are we going to do today?” She shoots me a toothy grin and works her way over to her desk, taking a seat and turning towards me.  


“The kind where we sit around all day trying to spend as little money as possible. We’ve got no cases, and it doesn’t look like that’s set to change too quickly.” I’ve already got the lamps turned down low to conserve fuel and the window open to try and allow a bit of dismal light into our cramped shop/office dealie. It’s how the business works: some days you are just up to your eyeballs in work, and on other occasions all you can really do is try and survive ‘til the next cash influx. If push comes to shove, I can probably beg a lunch or two off of my rather wealthy brother, but I’d really rather not. He’s got the money, he made it in manufacturing or some shit I don’t really know, but he’s always been a bit off, and every time I visit him a shitstorm inevitably goes down. Plus he’s still better than me with a sword and I really don’t want him to kick my ass again.

Terezi sighs and takes her seat, leaning back in a carefree manner. She’s much more relaxed with her motions then most people I’ve seen who are blind, with an almost reckless abandon as compared to most disabled people’s careful and measured movements, from my experience at least. I feel a little bad for her. She’s not like me. I’m in this for the money, no doubt about it. She, on the other hand, is all about justice. Used to be a constable. Never heard that story finished, though.  
“It’s cool. It’s been a slow weak but we got some reserves from that big drug bust we handled.”

“Dave, that was a month ago,” Terezi points out. And it’s true. Money influx is becoming more and more limited these days, largely just because they are uncharacteristically large amounts of constables sent to comb random areas of the city, meaning the crime gangs needs to reallocate their positions, usually sparking gang wars that nobody has any interest in cleaning up. They certainly don’t profit us.

“I find it somewhat likely that they’ll just see me and decide to service us as a method of getting to talk to us,” I jest, making something of a rather difficult situation. It has a degree of success, too, as Terezi’s face lights up a tad. She’s never said for long, and when she is, it’s usually because she wants something.

“You can’t always rely on your uncannily dashing appearance to save your life,” she says, brushing her brown hair back and sitting up in her chair a bit. “It’s not fair to the rest of us mortals.”

“Well that is not quite fair,” I answer back. “We aren’t all as smart as you, some of us need to be visually appealing to get by.” She opens her mouth to reply, but is stopped by a sharp rap on the door.

“Enter,” I say in my most businesslike voice, which is, to be entirely honest, not very businesslike at all. It seems to me a waste of time to develop such a habit when actual business is so much more important. But it gets the job done and in comes two people. Their posture quite clearly sets them apart as high-born and-

Oh.

Oh shit.

“What do you want?” I ask in as reasonable tone as I can. “I am preoccupied at this time.” Not strictly true, but not necessarily a lie, either.  


“I find it hard to believe that a lordly lady cannot take some simple time out of her schedule to visit her dear half-brother without an accusation being levied of some pressing need?” Rose’s tone is dripping with that emotion between humor and sarcasm that I quite simply cannot stand from her.  


“Alright, it was excellent to see you this day. Now I bid you adieu, I have important work to go over.” With this I pull out my case files and pretend to sort through them. This is stupid.

“But I just have a simple job for yo-“ she starts, only for me to cut her off.

“But it’s not,” I say with a tone of severe exasperation. “Every time you give me a job, I end up spending four days looking for an address that doesn’t exist, or chasing cats all the across the city, or defending one of your lady friends from an ‘attack’ that never comes, or that business with the fruit shipment.” All of these stories are true.  


“But,” she says, “I always pay well. And, of course you always deliver, even if you aren’t quite certain how it comes to be. Plus, this business is a great deal more mundane then most of my contracts. Just a little bit of sussing out secrets for the use of defense.”

“Rose,” Terezi says, bypassing social customs to address Rose directly. “We are not simple secret collectors. We are detectives, protectors of the law, doing what the constables can’t to protect the city. Doing something beyond their bounds would be unconscionable!”

“Would it make you feel better to know the circumstances? Us and a number of friends are at great risk of an information broker who would kill or enslave us all given the chance.” Aranea can always be relied upon to give the best of information in my experience, if a little bit too much of the best of information.

“Well, as long as it is legally sanctioned, then I’m sorry-“ but this time it’s Rose’s turn to interject.

“It’s Vriska,” are the only words she says. For the first time in a long time I see absolute conflict on Terezi’s face, some kind of internal conflict sprung up. She sat back and breathed out a long, stiff breath.

“Dave,” she said. “We have a case we need to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE thanks to krazieLeylines for their character analysis, who were pretty much the only reason this clusterfuck of a chapter actually got done.


End file.
